The invention relates to a safety toe iron for a ski binding with a sole holder which can be laterally swung out about in each case one perpendicular swivel axis located to the right and left of the longitudinal central axis, whereby a spring tension acts on said sole holder in the forward direction between the swivel axes.
With known safety toe irons of this type (DOS NO. 2,359,490, Austrian application No. 9991/72) the lateral swivel axes for the sole holder are arranged in such a way that in the case of lateral stressing up to a particular rotation angle of the sole holder about one of the pins the boot tip cannot be removed from the binding, whereby at the end of the lateral action of the springs the sole holder and therefore also the boot is returned to the axial position. If the swinging out of the sole holder, due to the action of the lateral forces is greater than the rotation angle, then the boot tip can be removed laterally from the binding, so that the connection with the ski is broken.
In the case of the known safety toe irons the spring tension must be regulated in such a way that a lateral swinging out of the sole holder is only possible when a dangerous starting torque acts on the leg of the skier. However, if parts of the binding are frozen solid or if an excessive forwardly directed pressure exerted by the heel iron which cooperates with the toe iron acts on the latter, then the release characteristics of the toe iron are significantly changed and the leg can be broken, despite the correct presetting of the initial tension of the springs in the toe iron.